Invisible ― Jason Grace

i. second date in hell

The stench of sulfur made it hard to concentrate, but he focused on the ground directly below them and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid—a river.

"Camilla," he said, having to yell to hear himself over the roar of the wind. "Water!"

He gestured frantically. Camilla's face was hard to read in the dim red light. She looked shell-shocked and terrified, just a tad apprehensive, but she nodded as if she understood.

Jason knew she'd only known she was a child of Neptune for a few days, but he had to hope the water powers were more innate than learned. If she could cushion their fall...

Maybe they wouldn't die just yet.

The river hurtled toward them. At the last second, Camilla yelled defiantly. The water erupted in a massive geyser and swallowed them whole.

◈

It wasn't the impact that hit the hardest—it was the cold.

Freezing water shocked the air right out of Jason's lungs. His limbs turned rigid, and he lost his grip on Camilla. He began to sink.

Strange wailing sounds filled his ears—millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed him down and made him numb.

What's the point of struggling? they told him. You're dead anyway. You'll never leave this place.

He could sink to the bottom and drown, let the river carry his body away. That would be easier.

He could just close his eyes.

Camilla found his hand and gripped it, jolting him back to reality. He couldn't see her in the murky water, but suddenly, he didn't want to die.

Together, they kicked upward and broke the surface.

Jason gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how sulfurous. The water swirled around them, and he realized Camilla was creating a whirlpool to buoy them up.

Though he couldn't make out their surroundings, he knew this was a river. Rivers had shores.

"Land," he croaked. "Go sideways."

Camilla looked near dead with exhaustion. Usually water was supposed to reinvigorate children of the sea god, the way high-altitude air reinvigorated Jason.

But clearly, this wasn't normal water. Controlling it must have taken every bit of his strength. Combined with the fact that she was still learning how to control water in general...

It was a recipe for disaster.

The whirlpool began to dissipate. Jason hooked one arm around Camilla's waist and struggled against the current. The river worked against him: thousands of weeping voices whispering in his ears, getting inside his brain.

Life is despair, they said. Everything is pointless, and then you die.

"Pointless," Camilla murmured. Her teeth chattered from the cold. She stopped swimming and began to sink.

"Millie!" he shouted. "The river is messing with your mind. It's the Cocytus—the River of Lamentation. It's made of pure misery!"

"Misery it is," she murmured, as if reciting something.

"You have to fight it, Millie," Jason said, his voice bordering on begging. "Please."

He kicked and struggled, trying to keep them both afloat. He'd always been a little afraid of swimming—the side effects of being a son of Jupiter. The misery river was not helping.